Hysteria around Mining Super Tax reminiscent of 1993 Native Title debate

There has been a predictable amount of hyperbole from sectional interests around Rudd's proposed mining super tax.

It almost mirrors the hysterics from State governments and miners over the proposed legislative response to the the 1992 Mabo decision. That legislation was passed through the Federal parliament in 1993 and is now factored in as a given.

Surely, the shrill voices of criticism are not going to back themselves into a corner on this. There has been minimal reporting of alternative perspectives such as Ross Garnaut's support and twenty leading Australian economists backing of the mine tax changes; this is not surprising given the media's position taken on Native Title and the like, as mainstream media is reliant on big business (if not owned by them!).

Hopefully, we are going to see a more balanced debate on this in the lead up to the election.

Are Footy Commentators Racist?

Ever since the famous incident captured in this picture I have been concerned about racial stereotypes in foot commentary. We might have made huge progress in on field sledging and barracking; but the commentators persist with language that is disturbing when talking about the skill of Aboriginal players.

I have bitten my tongue on many occasions but now that Sydney legend, Adam Goodes, has come out and named the issue, it is appropriate to continue the discussion he has raised.

Goodes writes:

"Silky, magic, lightning, jetstar, twinkle toes. You've all heard the descriptions that are used for indigenous players when they do something brilliant on the football field.

When Cyril Rioli dances around one opponent, sidesteps another and then burns off, runs and bounces to kick a goal, the commentators get excited about his so-called magical skills and freakish pace. But my favourite memory of Cyril is of something quite different. It's from the 2008 grand final, when young Cyril, then in his first year of football, found himself on the members' wing, taking on two Geelong players in Corey Enright and Max Rooke. He tangles with Enright, strips the ball from the Geelong player, then crawls along the ground to get to the next contest with Geelong hard man Rooke. He throws himself at Rooke, lays a heavy tackle and wins the free kick.

"You can't coach that, it's instinct,'' said the commentators.

I disagree. What Rioli displayed in that pivotal moment on football's biggest stage was a result of hard work, second effort, dogged determination and competitive spirit. There's nothing magical about indigenous footballers. They are not born with any special powers. ...Like any other footballer, to get drafted they've had to sacrifice things along the way, such as time with family and friends, and put years of effort into improving their game and their fitness."

It is important to have discussions like this, otherwise we end up perpetuating stereotypes about Indigenous people.

Has reconciliation gone down the toilet as a political priority in WA?

An open letter that was sent to political leaders before West Australian election 2008

Australians for Native Title and Reconciliation (WA) and the Bringing Them Home Committee WA take this opportunity to write jointly to urge your party to adopt a policy to provide core funding for the establishment of a community based “Reconciliation secretariat” in Western Australia that would be a catalyst for major reconciliation initiatives here and would also act as a Western Australian arm of Reconciliation Australia, which is an independent, not for profit, national peak body.

Why this and why now?

1. Leadership. While there are a number of reconciliation events at a local community level and in various organisations across the state, there is a real vacuum in promoting reconciliation at a state wide level. This sort of catalyst is fundamental to driving the momentum for a broadly based reconciliation movement. It is critical that there is a centralized body that can promote reconciliation events, provide resources and training.

2. Now is the time. A window has opened for Indigenous people and the wider community to move forward together. The National Apology has opened up possibilities for healing action and community mobilisation that we have not seen in this state for a long time.

3. The networks are in place. ANTaR and BTH are both voluntary organisations who struggle to meet the growing requests from a range of people and organisations. Being community based organisations, they are very much in touch with the needs as they emerge. This proposal leverages on those networks.

4. The business community has shown the way. The minerals industry generally is making significant inputs to Indigenous communities through employment practises, which is their sphere. They are sharing their very considerable income from lands which were, since time immemorial, cared for and inhabited by Indigenous peoples. The State Government can match that intent in its own sphere.

5. There has been a major commitment by the Commonwealth and COAG to closing the gap in relation to Aboriginal life expectancy. Aboriginal and non-Aboriginal people can work shoulder to shoulder to ‘close the gap’. We need this office to build dialogue and action around the questions: What is Aboriginal work in closing the gap? What is non-Aboriginal work in closing the gap? What is shared work in closing the gap? WA needs a community-based organisation with credibility that can operate across a range of community networks. WA needs an organisation with a State-wide focus on reconciliation initiatives and priorities.

6. This would not be a new budget item. In their budget, the Department of Indigenous Affairs has been allocated $100 thousand p.a. to a reconciliation small grants scheme. The Bringing Them Home committee is now commencing a small grants reconciliation scheme that will be funded by Lotterywest. In our view this frees the DIA money for an alternative reconciliation project in the area of greatest emerging need. While this is a relatively small allocation, it has the potential to be a base core funding.

7. This proposal builds upon success. Sorry Days are growing in number around the state and in numbers in attendance. ‘Yarning Circles’ for Stolen Generation members are attracting numbers between eight and sixty. After the success of Reconciliation Action Plans in State and Federal Government Departments, there is scope for expanding the scheme to many church and community organisations. The major churches all crafted reconciliation strategies at the urging of Australians for Reconciliation’s WA office in the late 1990s which can be re-energised. These are concrete indicators of a new desire for Reconciliation in the general community.

8. We understand that most other states have a centralized reconciliation body. We believe that Western Australia’s lack of financial support for such a body is short sighted; it undervalues the social capital of the goodwill that exists in business, community organisations, the Indigenous network and the wider community.

This letter seeks in principle agreement in the form of published written pre-election promise. Reconciliation WA would be a small secretariat which leveraged sound networks to harness considerable recent goodwill in a window of opportunity. It needs reliable funding to be established as a community hub, strong on communications and a significant contact point nationally.

Took the Children Away - Archie Roach

When Archie Roach penned Took The Children Away, it became one of the most important songs in Australia’s contemporary history.

This song tells of the forced separation of children from their parents, as was done to thousands of Aboriginal children during the implementation of the government’s assimilation policies.

Many Aboriginal people identify strongly with the story carried by this song. It won two Aria Awards and a Human Rights Award. It was the first time a Human Rights award had been presented to a songwriter. It was in the US Rolling Stone’s Top 50 albums for 1992. It has subsequently gone gold in Australia.

While still a very young child, Roach and his sisters, along with many other young people of the ’stolen generation,’ were forcibly removed from their family by Australian government agencies, and placed in an orphanage. After enduring two unpleasant placements in foster care Roach was eventually fostered by the Coxes, a family of Scottish immigrants in Melbourne. The Coxes’ eldest daughter, Mary, played keyboards and guitar in a local pentecostal church, and taught Roach the basics of both instruments. He was further inspired by his foster father’s record collection, which included old Scottish ballads and songs by Billie Holiday, the Ink Spots, the Drifters and Nat King Cole.

This story’s right, this story’s true
I would not tell lies to you
Like the promises they did not keep
And how they fenced us in like sheep.
Said to us come take our hand
Sent us off to mission land.
Taught us to read, to write and pray
Then they took the children away,
Took the children away,
The children away.
Snatched from their mother’s breast
Said it was for the best
Took them away.
The welfare and the policeman
Said you’ve got to understand
We’ll give them what you can’t give
Teach them how to really live.
Teach them how to live they said
Humiliated them instead
Taught them that and taught them this
And others taught them prejudice.
You took the children away
The children away
Breaking their mothers heart
Tearing us all apart
Took them away
One dark day of Framingham
Come and didn’t give a damn
My mother cried go get their dad
He came running, fighting mad
Mother’s tears were falling down
Dad shaped up and stood his ground.
He said you touch my kids and you fight me
And they took us from our family.
Took us away
They took us away
Snatched from our mother’s breast
Said this was for the best
Took us away.
Told us what to do and say
Told us all the white man’s ways
Then they split us up again
And gave us gifts to ease the pain
Sent us off to foster homes
As we grew up we felt alone
Cause we were acting white
Yet feeling black
One sweet day all the children came back
The children come back
The children come back
Back where their hearts grow strong
Back where they all belong
The children came back
Said the children come back
The children come back
Back where they understand
Back to their mother’s land
The children come back
Back to their mother
Back to their father
Back to their sister
Back to their brother
Back to their people
Back to their land
All the children come back
The children come back
The children come back
Yes I came back.

Former Warumpi Band member Neil Murray says “Archie is the holy man of Australian music. There’s a great humility about him” and talks of Archie’s "astonishing grace and humility", saying Archie brings with his art "the belief that spiritual healing is always possible, even in the damaged land he has walked".

Paul Kelly says "Archie’s songs are at once both love songs and political songs."

Bart Willoughby, whose band ‘No Fixed Address’ earned the admiration of bands like ‘The Clash’ and its song ‘We Have survived’ is now an anthem of epic proportions says ‘Archie is the voice of Aboriginal emotion’.

The first time Archie played this song to the audience, there was no clapping or any sound when he finished; that made Archie think that the audience didn’t like it so he walked off the side of the stage, when he heard clapping from the audience. He turned around and saw the whole of the audience cheering and clapping.

Sir Bob Geldof has said that “Archie Roach is one of the greatest singer songwriters in the world”

Archie Roach said that, like many Aboriginal people, he hoped the apology would be a beginning rather than an end. He said: “Once this is done, perhaps we can then make inroads into other issues. I understand that an apology is not going to solve all the problems, or the plight of Aboriginal people, but it’s going to help. It’s going to help people to feel a bit more free to go ahead. It will help me and my children.” That is something which I find incredibly humbling.

'Archie’s autobiographic “Took the Children Away” along with Bob Randall’s “Brown Skinned Baby” are the two quintessential songs of the Stolen Generation. They are as important to this country’s heritage as“Waltzing Matilda”' (Neil Murray 2007)

Questioning the role Churches took in relation to the Stolen Generations

The following in a transcript of an interview I did on Radio National - Sunday 11 February 1996

The picture (undated) is of 'Camfield' an institution for Aboriginal children that was operated by the Anglican Church till about 1870.

Mick Dodson: Genocide is not just the physical destruction of a people. And Australia signed the Genocide Convention, I think that was in 1949. But genocide includes the forced removal of children from one group to another group. And the best answer, according to the authorities, depended on their being de-Aboriginalised, if you like, and made into non-indigenous people, made into white fellas if you like. That became official national policy in I think 1937, and it was the official policy up until - well in some jurisdictions up until the mid-80s.

Kirsten Garrett: The appalling truth is that it was the churches that practiced these evil policies. Not all of the churches all of the time, there are of course exceptions. But where did the policies to take the children away from the communities originate?

A former Executive Officer of the Anglican Social Responsibilities Mission in Western Australia, Stephen Hall.

Stephen Hall: Well it’s hard to know which led which, but I think the Government policies of assimilation, and the missionary vision which grew out of a fervour that saw the great stories of the missionaries in Africa and China and those kind of things, were stories that were around. But also there was the view of missionaries - it wasn’t just to Christianise or evangelise, but it was to make Aboriginal people more like us, which immediately laid them to falling into the trap of the assimilation policies of the day and being colluded and co-opted into that.

Kirsten Garrett: Yes, because the point’s been made to me a couple of times that the churches were only carrying out Government policy, they were not in a sense responsible. But at that time there was much less of a gap between church and State.

Stephen Hall: There’s two answers to this question: One, yes they were just delivering Government policy, but they weren’t doing it blindly, and the question of how they got into that position is something that needs to be addressed in the issue of Church and State. But the other thing is that as you say, Church and State were much closer then, and I actually thnink that people who were active in Church circles, were also active in government circles and to a degree there would have been people who were driving that policy who were active church leaders and active people in churches. So the links, I think, were very close.

Kirsten Garrett: The National Council of Churches to which every church belongs except the Lutherans and the Baptists, has written to the Inquiry, saying it will co-operate fully. But the Council says it will need outside funding to do so because the documents are scattered all over the country and not collated. It is beyond the present means of the National Council of Churches to get the documents together in a useful form, and it is unlikely that the churches will be able to make any formal submission before the Inquiry finishes at the end of the year.

Last year, Stephen Hall prepared a discussion paper for the Anglican Church in Western Australia. Stephen Hall is concerned that there may be sensitivities in some areas, of some of the church bureaucracies.

Stephen Hall: If churches are serious about justice, if churches are serious about reconciliation between Aboriginal Australia and non-Aboriginal Australia, they would have to face up to this issue fairly and squarely. I’m cautious though, because I know that there’s all kinds of history there that some people might not want to uncover, and I’m also very aware of how some churches responded to all the matters raised with the British child migration and institutionalisation, and they were very reluctant to address issues there, and this is a far bigger issue affecting far more children and people of course who are now adults.

Kirsten Garrett: Is there a fear in the churches that the things that will be uncovered might be things like sexual abuse or cruelty, or just policies that are no longer tenable?

Stephen Hall: Some of those issues have certainly been highlighted in the stories of some children that were institutionalised in church institutions; sexual abuse by staff or children of staff in some situations, I think that’s an issue, but also they were very harsh, strict regimes, and that’s fairly well accepted now that they were, and of course some churches may have difficulty facing up to that. And of course there is the whole question of the moral framework within which those institutions operated.

Kirsten Garrett: The moral framework of the churches is under scrutiny. Their practices reflected the paternalism that has been prevalent in all British colonies.

Stephen Hall: It’s difficult to talk about the church as a homogenous thing because as you said, there were all kinds of denominations and missionary societies and organisations involved, and to say the church did this, or did that, is very difficult of course because different things were done in different places and in different ways. But yes, I think the church did fall into the trap of assimilation into the idea that the Aboriginal race was dying out and that Aboriginal peoples’ blackness would be bred out of them. And there’s some classic speeches by A.O. Neville, who was the Chief Protector of Aboriginal people in Western Australia during that time, sort of saying whether it takes a hundred years or 150 years, there’s no reason why assimilation won’t work. I mean, they talk about children being snatched and put into institutions, and I think one of the things was not just to make them more like us as far as white, but was to Christianise or inculcate them with the theological dogmas and beliefs that those missionaries and people had at that time. And I think that mind-set is still around in some church organisations in how they deal with Aboriginal people as well.

Kirsten Garrett: It doesn’t end there. The churches, the discussion paper says, may also have to look into what money and assets they received to carry out their work.

Stephen Hall: There’s ample evidence around that churches and some missionary organisations that were non-denominational have profited through grants of land that were related to them running institutions for Aboriginal children. The Catholic Church in the north-west of W.A. has some significant holdings of land; the Anglican Church has lands around that were used in this practice that are still in control of the church; and benefit has been made out of those lands, and there were financial grants that were made - salaries, and all kinds of things like that - in institutions and missions that were run around the country.

Kirsten Garrett: When you raise these kinds of ideas in church circles, what sort of a response are you getting?

Stephen Hall: Well some people are quite excited and pleased that these kinds of issues are being raised, but they tend not to be the institutional people if you know what I mean - they tend to be the people who are concerned about issues and wanting them addressed, rather than the people who control the finances and the properties.

Kirsten Garrett: This is a real sleeper, a lit fuse. If the churches were given land that had been taken from Aboriginal people in the first place, where does that place them morally, now?

Carrolup Art

The renowned Carrolup school of Noongar painting was inspired by the artwork of Stolen Generation Noongar children who painted at Carrolup River Native Settlement.
Carrolup was an institution in the South West of Western Australia that was established in about 1918 by the Chief Protector of Aborigines, Mr AO Neville.

Many of these art works, executed in charcoal, watercolours and ink, were sent to Europe for exhibition in the late 1950s. They were then ‘lost’ until April 2004 when over one hundred pieces were rediscovered, still in their original packing, at Picker Art Gallery at Colgate University, USA.

Executed in a style that mingles European and Aboriginal styles, they reflect a pivotal moment in modern Aboriginal art history. The children framed their compositions in a traditional European way, as reflected in their use of foregrounding and shading, but incorporated images of people, kangaroos and designs from Aboriginal culture.

Athol Farmer, an Aboriginal artist, visited to New York to view the works. "As a contemporary ‘Carrolup artist’ myself," Farmer says of the drawings, "to see them was inspiring; it was amazing for me, it was emotional, it really touched me to see those pieces."

For the WA artist it was a moving reminder of his own childhood, when he was mentored by Carrolup artists at Gnowangerup in WA’s South West. “In some ways, every Noongar family from down here feels a connection to the children of Carrolup”, Farmer says, adding that his own style was influenced by the Carrolup settlement. “Some Noongars are descendants of the artists, others feel the pull of a shared history that provokes bitterness and pride”.

“That makes the discovery of these artworks so important. It’s a bit like a lifeline thrown to us, they show our history and remind us of our heritage and values. They are also encouraging better understanding and relationships between Noongar people and the wider community.” said Mr Farmer.

The story of the Carrolup art began in 1945 with the arrival of teacher Noel White at Carrolup Native Settlement, which is situated some 25 kilometres north-west of Katanning. Determined to give his students a more meaningful life, he encouraged the children to develop their talent and introduced evening sketching sessions.

His young charges were inspired and began making extraordinary drawings, varying from landscapes and botanical studies, which were stimulated by nature walks, to designs for fabrics and ceramics, scenes drawn from Australian poetry and images depicting Aboriginal life in the South West.

The Carrolup art was so distinctive and technically sophisticated that the work toured Europe in the 1950s to considerable acclaim.

The art provided powerful relief from the mission walls for the children, adding that a number of artists continued their work after the government closed down Carrolup Native Settlement. Mr Farmer said that as a child in Gnowangerup he had sat and watched Revel Cooper, one of the Carrolup artists, at work. In turn, he mentors Aboriginal artists in Katanning and other towns in the region.

It was in Katanning, that the Carrolup story took its next step, when some 25 pieces from the New York collection were shown as part of the 2006 Perth International Arts Festival.

The ‘New York’ Carrolup works were only displayed in Katanning and the launch was a very moving event for the local Noongar community. The Katanning event also included a display of Athol Farmer’s work at the Mungart Boodja Arts Centre, with a further display of historic and contemporary Carrolup works at the Town Hall.

Farmer’s contemporary work on display was very much rooted in the Carrolup style and all works were sold (prices ranged from $1,000 to $7,000) with some buyers placing orders for future work by Farmer.

The exhibition "Koorah Coolingah - Children Long Ago” was a momentous and moving occasion for the local community and an exhibition of major historical significance for WA.

There is still a lot of ‘Carrolup’ art held in WA; there is a major collection at UWA’s Berndt Museum and some is held at the Battye Library.

Publicity around the 2006 Katanning exhibition resulted in some other pieces turning up from around the State with some being donated to the Mungart Boodja Arts Centre. One can be certain that the New York collection has not gone back into its packing crates at the Picker Art Gallery.

There has been ongoing debate in some circles as to whether the Carrolup art should be repatriated from New York back to Noongar Country.

Swan Native and Half Caste Mission

I have been researching around the question of 'The Anglican Church and Aboriginal Children Western Australia from 1838 to 1920' for some time on an informal basis. Late last year it came to my attention that their is to be a change to the current usage of one of those sites (SNHCM) and then only a week or so ago, someone asked (me online) if I knew anything about the SNHCM. So, i decided to post the following outline of my preliminary research in case there are other people interested in knowing a bit more about that institution.

~~

In 1829 Frederick Irwin came to the Swan River Colony as military commander; five years later he and George Moore went to Ireland and England and established the Western Australian Missionary Society.

The Western Australian Missionary Society subsequently purchased an 866-acre site that stretched from the Swan River right up into the hills; the 69-acre “Swanleigh” property is what remains of that land.

The Society sent an Italian, Dr Luis Giustiniani, as its first missionary; he arrived at the Swan Parish in 1836. He built two houses - his home and an Aboriginal mission - and after advocating for Aboriginal people Giustiniani left the colony amid controversy in 1838.

Revd William Mitchell followed, he arrived with his family and a governess named Anne Breeze in 1838. Within a month Mitchell established a mission school on the Swan site for settlers’ children and Aboriginal children with Breeze assisting.

A second Anglican school was established at Fremantle by George King in 1841, it continued till 1850.

In 1841 Abraham Jones re-opened Giustiniani’s mission school in Guildford it also continued until 1850.


In May 1842, after arriving the year before, Revd John Wollaston proposed a plan to remove Aboriginal children to schools where they would be educated at the cost of settler families, who would then have the option of employing them as domestic servants.

In 1843 Mitchell established a second Mission School at Middle Swan and at Upper Swan Revd Postlethwaite established a Mission school for settlers and Aboriginal children which ran until 1848.

In the 1850s Swan Cottage was built at the Middle Swan site to accommodate young ‘native girls’ for the Mission School and Wollaston was granted 60 acres in Albany for an Institution.


The children from the King’s School in Fremantle were then moved to the Albany institution. Henry Camfield and his wife Anne managed the Albany Institution; Mrs Camfield being Anne Breeze who had worked in Mitchell’s Middle Swan School over a decade earlier.

When Hale was appointed as Perth’s first Bishop in 1856 he is said to have had three main areas of interest: care of the Aborigines, the spiritual welfare of the convicts, and a desire to provide higher education for the ‘sons of the better class settlers’.

In 1871 the Albany Native Institution was the longest operating educational establishment for Aboriginal children in the colony and the Camfields wanted to retire; but nobody could be found to operate the Institution. Hale was troubled by this and offered his resignation with the intention of going to manage the Albany institution himself - a delegation talked him out of resigning.


With no solution to the problem in Albany, Hale purchased a block adjacent to Bishop’s House in the city (cnr of St George’s Terrace and Spring St), built a house on it to accommodate and educate Aboriginal children and brought the children from Albany to it. This was all done at his own expense.

After Hale left Perth in 1875, his successor, Bishop Parry, took over the direct management of the Institution until 1888 when he moved the children to the newly established the Swan Native and Half Caste Mission on the Middle Swan site.

The purpose built two-storey building in the City was known as Hale House. After operating as the Bishop’s “Native and Half Caste Institution” for 16 years the land was eventually absorbed into the Bishop’s See.

The Swan Native and Half Caste Mission operated on the site at the same time as the Swan Boys’ Orphanage and later the girls’ orphanage that had operated in Adelaide Terrace also moved there and was known as the Swan Girls’ Orphanage. The Mission and Orphanages were separated by some acreage and the Jane Brook. The Orphanages were predominantly for non-Aboriginal children, although some children from the Mission, particularly older boys, stayed at the Boys Orphanage. The department that was responsible for Aboriginal affairs appears to have been unhappy with this practice and after one visit instructed those responsible to move all the Aboriginal boys out of the Orphanage back to the Mission.

During this period some substantial grants of land were made to the Diocesan Trustees by the Crown in relation to these various institutions.


Later, the “Aborigines Act 1905” made the Chief Protector the legal guardian of ‘every Aboriginal and half-caste child’ under 16 years. AO Neville was appointed Chief Protector in 1915 and subsequently opened two major reserves, at Moore River near Mogumber and Carrolup River near Katanning.

In 1920 Neville discontinued the Government subsidy to Church run Institutions. This apparently forced the closure of the Swan Native and Half Caste Mission with the remaining children sent to Moore River Native Settlement, Mogumber.

Neville’s decision and the sending of the Mission children to Mogumber effectively ended more than 80 years of Anglican work with Aboriginal children who were predominantly Noongar - that is to say children of Aboriginal children from the Perth metropolitan area and the greater South West.

During that period of time the Anglican Church had responsibility for children who were moved from Fremantle to Albany (1850s), from Albany to Perth (1872), from Perth to Swan (1888) and from Swan to Mogumber (1920).

lines in picutres

I love pictures with strong lines in them. I took this pic - looking down a laneway between two premises in Fremantle a year or two back.

Picture from East Perth (date unkown)

This photo was on the wall of an office of the Tenants Advice Service for years. The person who has the picture does not know who it is - but wonders if someone recognises the lady - as she would like to pass it on to the family.

Boat People Enter WA Waters

This painting of the founding fathers of the 'Swan River Colony' hangs in the foyer of the WA parliament. I find it historically amusing and somewhat offensive. I wonder what the the sovereign Noongar people of the Beeliar think of it?

The first boat illegal people...